NSPCC blames £9m fall in income on ‘challenging’ fundraising environment

The latest set of annual accounts for the NSPCC have shown that its income fell by over £9m this year, which the charity has blamed on the “challenging environment” around fundraising.

The charity’s accounts, made up to the 31 March 2018, show that the NSPCC’s total income was £118.3m this year, down from £127.4m in 2016/17. The accounts say this is due to “a decline in income from individual giving, coupled with a reduction in legacy income and income from charitable activities”.

The accounts show that overall legacy donations fell by over £6m this year to £97.2m; individual giving and regular donations fell by £3.3m to £55.5m and income from charitable activities, primarily received through government and statutory grants, fell by just over £1m to £11.5m.

The charity also reported a £1.4m loss of income from its trading activities, and saw a £1.5m reduction in income from its fundraising events.

NSPCC also reported that it had lost 28,000 “committed regular giving relationships” in the last financial year, which it said was “in line with expectations”.

Despite these losses in income across the board, the NSPCC said that it had reached “more children than ever before” in the last financial year, and said the fact that nearly 90 per cent of its total income comes from members of the public illustrates “the clear mandate we hold to act on behalf of the public to protect children”.

NSPCC’s total expenditure also fell to £116.1m, down from £121.1m in 2016/17. However over £93m of that was spent on the charity’s aims, up from £91m in 2016/17.

This included over £40m on “services for children and families”, £20.7m on Childline and its schools service and £27m on child protection advice and awareness.

Staff pay and complaints

The NSPCC saw a reduction of 60 full-time equivalent staff members between 2018 and 2017, and paid out £262,000 worth of redundancy costs, down from more than £1.8m in 2017.

The charity had 55 staff members paid more than £60,000 a year on its payroll this year, of which the highest paid was Peter Wanless, the charity’s chief executive, who was paid between £170,001 and £180,000 this year.

In terms of overall complaints, the NSPCC reported a total of 665, of which 506 were directly related to individual giving.

It said it defines a complaint as “any expression of dissatisfaction” and that it “actively encourages members of the public to share with us their views on our work to resolve problems and to improve our performance".